


_The Fixer

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [7]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-17 18:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4676285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiden accepts a fixer contract.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[takes place in 2003]

* * *

Barely two years ago, Damien had been a very different man. He'd sat up all night in his tiny, messy office and written reports for the cops about his findings on confiscated hard-drives and other hardware. He'd spent years seeing the downside of humanity, the bad kind, the people with neatly arranged child porn folders and the sickos with their own, homemade snuff movies. He'd worked himself through cleverly deleted tax-evasion schemes and piles of blackmail and extortion material.

He'd worked until he was about to expire out of sheer boredom or disgust. He'd paid his taxes and watched the digits on his bank statement each month with increasing anxiety. It wasn't fair, but that hadn't really bothered him. He'd always known life wasn't fair, but it took him years until he'd figured out how to fix it. The answer had been right in front him all that time, he could just reach out and take everything for himself.

Well, his first attempt of living the American dream had landed him in jail, ruined his marriage and now he lived in an ugly, two-story house in the borderlands between the Wards and the Loop, housemates with a man for whom shooting people was the hallmark of a bad Monday.

He was still up and working all night, but things were different this time.

A slowly moving cloud of cigarette smoke hung ominously under the ceiling of the living room. He'd never smoked with Marcus in the house, but now it was just Aiden and his girl upstairs, and they could handle a little smoke just fine. He still didn't smoke when Juliana allowed Marcus to come around, but most of the house had soaked up so many fumes, he could probably inhale for a week without feeling any withdrawal.

Damien hadn't been stupid enough to think life of a criminal was glamourous. It wasn't fast cars and hot women, bling around your neck, gun in your hand. That wasn't how it worked, but it _was_ being your own man, working only for yourself, taking whatever you could get from whoever was dumb enough to let you.

Cars and guns were Aiden's forte, anyway and girls… well, it turned out he was more hung up on Juliana than he liked to let on, much to his secret chagrin and Aiden's not-so-secret amusement.

Phishing sites were the backbone of their income these days, sustaining a healthy trade with stolen IDs and credit card information. Porn, gambling, drugs, anything that made the victims willing to let things slide in the hope of preserving their dignity.

Sometimes, to mix things up, he and Aiden double-teamed the local urban street racing crowd. After all, Aiden had apparently sold his soul for these particular driving skills, so when he said he'd come in third in a race, he would. If he said he'd push another driver to win, he usually did that, too. Made betting on the outcome a breeze, even if it wasn't quite the thrill of an actual gamble.

Damien was working with headphones on. When Greta stayed the night, it tended to be the smart choice. Ostensibly, Greta was a sociology student, but she spent most of her time working for a PI, playing decoy when an attractive one was needed. Damien supposed it was a step up from auctioning off your worn underwear, but college on a shoestring budget was something he had a lot of sympathy for. He didn't quite know where Aiden had picked her up, but she'd been around for a few weeks, long enough that Damien was wondering whether it was something serious and how much of their work he was supposed to hide from her.

Not that he didn't _like_ the girl. She had a pretty face and a dirty mind, something he knew how to appreciate even if he didn't get to benefit. However, she was also ridiculously noisy in bed. He was fairly sure most of their neighbours were going the headphones route, too.

After the first night she'd stayed, Damien had been sarcastic over the breakfast table, but it seemed to have gone right past her. Aiden, meanwhile, had been chuckling into his coffee. He probably agreed, but didn't want to piss her off.

It took a while until the low buzzing of a phone managed to work itself into his awareness and some additional time until he detected the thing stuck between the cushions of the couch.

Damien glared at the phone, pulled his headphones down and put the laptop aside.

He stomped up the stairs, cursing as the phone continued to buzz. Kid hated voicemail so people tended to just keep at it until something happened.

In the semi-darkness, he pushed Aiden's door open, flipped the light switch a few times, then left the light on.

"Hey, kid! Phone!" he yelled.

Juliana had taken most of the furniture when they'd split up, while Aiden's mother had cleared out his old apartment and everything while he was in jail. Even months later, Aiden still only owned a dresser, a bed and a lamp on the floor in a corner. He and Greta had still managed to make a mess of the room, pieces of clothes strewn everywhere. The bed was a mess, too. A thatch of red hair and a pale, freckled foot was all that was visible of Greta. Aiden himself was on his stomach, upside down, sprawling on the bed and tangled in the sheets. He was dangerously close to simply dropping over the edge when he lifted his head and cast a bleary-eyed frown toward the door.

"You left your fixer phone _in_ the couch," Damien said. "I told you not to feed the poor thing."

He didn't give Aiden any warning before he tossed the phone at him, but didn't receive the satisfaction of seeing the device bounce off his hard head. Aiden caught it, albeit awkwardly. He glanced at the phone, then rolled off the bed, taking the blanket with him. He came to sit on the floor and picked up the call, but only to say, "Call you back in a minute."

He took a deep breath and leaned his head back, glowering at Damien.

The girl was beginning to stir, too, goosebumps had sprung up on her exposed skin.

"… sorry," Aiden said slowly, as if he'd just remembered it. "What time is it?"

Damien shrugged, pushed his shoulder into the doorway, letting his gaze pass over Aiden and settle on the girl.

"Half past three," he said.

Aiden rubbed his hand down his face and yawned, stretched his arms out over his head.

"Are you still working?" he asked. He picked himself up, tossed the bed-sheet over his shoulder and arms like a toga.

"One of us has to be the breadwinner," Damien said.

Greta curled to her side, still half-asleep and groped around blindly for where the blanket had gone. When she came up empty, she finally woke up fully. She lifted an arm and put it over her eyes shading them from the light as she peered around the room.

"What…?" she mumbled.

Aiden gave a quick glance, but didn't say anything. Instead, he pushed past Damien and out in the hallway, phone back by his ear as he walked.

"What is it?" he demanded in a vaguely menacing tone of voice. Of course, he'd lose most of that intimidation if whoever was on the other end of the line knew he was wearing a blanket, rifling through the fridge and about to drink from the milk carton.

"Don't you have people for that?" Aiden asked and after a moment, "Okay. What do you need?"

Greta sat up and brushed strands of hair from her face, blinked again in the light and twitched when she registered Damien still lingering in the doorway.

She snapped her legs together and pulled her knees in, snatched up the pillow she'd been sleeping on and clutched it to her, giving Damien a glare.

Damien glanced over his shoulder, raised his voice so Aiden could hear him in the kitchen below.

"So she _is_ a real redhead," he remarked.

"Yeah, aren't you really glad you didn't make that bet?" Aiden called up, before he continued his conversation. "I'll need forty minutes."

Greta glared harder, "Do you mind?" she asked acidly.

Damien grinned, "More into black myself, but if Aiden's done with you…"

"Aiden's done with her," Aiden said as he pushed back past Damien and went to his dresser. So maybe he wasn't too serious about her, after all. Must be her constant shrieking.

"Hey, you can't just pass me around like that," Greta growled, looking away from Damien to focus on Aiden.

He'd picked his clothes, piled them in one hand and took a long step to the bed. He leaned down and picked up her chin with the tips of his fingers, smirked a little and kissed her slowly until she forgot she was angry with him.

"Relax," Aiden smirked. "He just got dumped. All he's up to is some cuddling."

Damien gave her his best leer, "Yeah, _hardcore_ cuddling."

Aiden pulled back, but Greta snapped her hand up and fisted it into the blanket, dragging it loose from around him. Aiden rolled his eyes, but let her have it, standing back from the bed to get dressed.

With the blanket around her shoulders and still behind the shield of the pillow, Greta relaxed, leaned back into the wall above the bed, meeting Damien's gaze somewhat more playfully than before.

Damien shrugged and withdrew out into the hallway, making his way back to his laptop, but Aiden caught up with him on the stairs, already fully dressed and looking somewhat presentable, combing his fingers through his tangled hair.

"I need to do a pickup for an old client," Aiden said. "Her normal guy's gone missing, something more's going on."

"I hope there's a bonus in it, then," Damien pointed out.

"Your worry just warms my heart," Aiden remarked.

They stopped by the front door and Aiden pulled his gun holster and jacket from the untidy pile constituting the wardrobe. He flipped the bright red gun in his hand before he put it away, gave a little pleased smirk.

"Oh? I need to worry about you now?" Damien inquired lightly. "Lost all your edge in the last… uh, seven hours? I knew that girl was bad for you."

"Yes, Daddy," Aiden quirked an eyebrow, but grew serious. "But can you stay up? I may need some backup."

"Still need to finish that site anyway," Damien said. "Entertain your redheaded girl. You'll hear it if we get along."

More seriously, he added, "Gonna be there, just call."

"Thanks," Aiden said and left.

After a moment, the roar of his bike broke through the comparative quiet of the late-night-early-morning.

Damien glanced up the stairs, could just make out the edge of Aiden's bed through the open door.

"Hey, girl!" he called. "I'm gonna order something to eat, you want something?"

There was a moment of silence, then the whispering of blankets. A moment later, Greta appeared at the door, wrapped tightly in the blanket, looking down on him.

"Sushi," she said.

"Sushi? Raw fish wrapped in algae?" Damien asked. "At three in the morning?"

"What makes sushi more weird than pizza?" Greta asked back. "At three in the morning?"

Damien considered it, then shrugged, "Good point."

* * *

Belinda Mitchell owned a small chain of art galleries in Chicago. Most of her business was legit, but she considered it her duty to fence stolen art or help move clever forgeries. She had been one of Aiden's first serious clients when he was starting out as a fixer, a business that relied almost exclusively on hearsay, before the Grid took off. Without Mitchell's trust and recommendation, things would have been significantly harder. 

Since getting out of jail, he didn't usually take these kinds of jobs anymore. He didn't want to be set up for another stay in an intensive care unit only to be transferred straight behind bars. He wouldn't let that kind of mistake happen again and besides, cybercrime was the future.

For Mitchell, though, Aiden was willing to make an exception. He owed her that much.

Most of his past jobs for her had been pickup or delivery jobs, the odd situation where he had to stand menacingly behind her shoulder to aid in her negotiation. He'd knee-capped a would-be buyer, once, who thought he was going to double-deal a middle-aged lady in an elegant designer costume.

Mitchell had a steel core and a keen business sense, it wasn't her style to call in the middle of the night and ask him to come without much preamble or explanation. She had several people working for her, most of them on the regular payroll, she'd go to them before she turned to Aiden.

Aiden parked his bike a small distance away, checked the camera angles before he got off and strode to the back of Mitchell's gallery. It was shuttered up for the night, steel bolts on the back as well as the front. He heard the solidity of the door in the low thud his knock caused.

Waiting, he took a step back and tucked his hands into his pockets, surveyed the backstreet in all direction. Two dark cars were parked close by, under signs marking them as reserved for employees of the gallery. One was no doubt Mitchell's Adamant, the other was a shiny new compact car.

He turned his attention back to the door when he heard it unlock. It was pushed open only wide enough to see a narrow pale face hover in the dark of the badly-lit hallway behind.

"Are you… uh… Pearce?" the young man answered.

"No, I'm the big bad wolf," Aiden answered dryly. "What do I look like?"

The man hesitated, blinked several times and seemed to blanch a little more.

Mitchell's voice called from inside, "Don't stand there like an idiot! Let him in!"

The man stepped back, gave Aiden ample room to step into a narrow hallway. Another man stood in the shadows there, taller and broader and noticeably less nervous than the first. He gave Aiden a short nod, gaze passing over him and into the empty alley behind him.

"Thank god you're here," Mitchell greeted him as he walked into the storeroom, the nervous young man followed him.

"What happened?"

"I'm expecting a delivery tonight, but the man who was supposed to pick it up, he has vanished."

Aiden studied her. Carefully applied makeup cracking like fine marble, dried up after a long day. He sensed her annoyance with his silence, but took it, waiting for her to continue.

Several emotions crossed Mitchell's face, from vaguely annoyed to worried to disgusted. She passed her gaze over the young man before she returned it to Aiden, narrowed her eyes and said, "My assistant went by his place and it had been trashed. There was blood in the kitchen, but no trace of him. He had the sense not to call the police, but I'm sure the neighbours will have done so by now. Any investigation will no doubt eventually lead to me and I would like to have this deal out of the way. Neater that way."

"Why do you need me?"

Mitchell stared at him for a long minute, face hard in the white light of the lamp above her. A small smile broke her expression briefly.

"Plausible deniability. You're an independent agent. Whatever you do, it's on you." Her expression softened just a little. "But that's only relevant if you're caught. I don't expect you to be."

He returned her gaze steadily until she let the moment drop, turned away and walked a few steps to a laptop set up on a metal table.

"Apart from this hard to quantify hiccup, it shouldn't be difficult. I have my arrangements with an employee at the port, all you've got to do is hand over this envelope," she held up the brown paper, wrapped around a bundle of money. "Take the package and put it in the car, come back here."

"Hard to quantify?" Aiden repeated, intrigued despite himself. He liked the digital networks, the smart devices, he thought he might even like Blume's ctOS, because the street was finding its own uses for it and he had the finger right on the pulse. But he hadn't forgotten what reality felt like, either, and sometimes the virtual just wasn't as satisfying.

Mitchell looked back at him, one perfect eyebrow arched questioningly high. "Are you going to do it? Or do I have to go fishing for another fixer?"

Aiden shook his head. "I'll need some more details."

Mitchell studied him, too professional to start talking money this early, but clearly expecting him to do so. When the silence started to become uncomfortable, Mitchell glanced down at her laptop, but didn't do anything with it.

"Five paintings are being shipped from Toronto to a non-existent address. The package is currently in storage at the port, where someone I pay good money to expects to hand it over to the right person. As I've already said, that's all there is to it."

"What's special about it?"

Mitchell pressed her lips together, looked annoyed and impatient for a no more than a second before she schooled her features. "I don't know," she said.

Aiden shook his head. "But you have an idea."

She took a deep breath, tried to stare him down briefly, but finally relented.

"The acquisition of these paintings was a little… messy. They were stolen from a private collector who, I'm afraid, has some connections of his own. I bought the paintings from someone who desperately wanted to be rid of them and had no time or inclination to negotiate a fair deal."

She paused, clearly to give him a chance to fill in the obvious details if he wished, but he wanted to hear it from her.

"I assume someone else is after these paintings."

Aiden thought it through for a moment, then nodded slowly.

"I'll need the names," he said. "Your man at the port and your missing one, including his address."

Mitchell nodded, but glanced down at her watch and her mouth narrowed to a thin line.

"My assistant will text you the information," she said and Aiden saw the young man jump from the corner of his eyes.

Mitchell gave Aiden a hard look, keeping his attention fixed on her.

"But we lost enough time already. You should be on your way."

"I'll need a car," Aiden said.

Mitchell's heels made precise little clicking sounds as she walked across the room to a small cabinet, opened it and took out a set of keys.

"Dark blue van," she explained as she returned to him. "Parked in the garage. You don't have to worry about it, it's clean."

Aiden slipped on a pair of thin driving gloves before he took the keys from her hand. She arched her brows as she watched him, but didn't comment on it further.

"That's what I like to hear."

He took a last look around, then strode from the room quickly and made his way to the garage. On the way, he pulled out his phone. Information on the two men had already arrived and he forwarded everything to Damien, then called him.

"You got it?" he asked.

_"Yep, let me guess, you want all their dirty little secrets?"_ Damien asked, audibly speaking through a mouthful of food. Some guitar music playing in the background, a female voice singing.

"Don't need that much. One's gone missing from his home, tap into the cameras see if there's anything going on around his place in the last 24 hours. I'm gonna meet the other one, just make sure he's not a rat. I'd like to know if he's got any gang connections, too. And, for fuck's sake, don't make Greta listen to that _wailing_ you call music."

_"I'm a man of wealth and taste,"_ Damien pointed out, clearly grinning. _"Unlike you, Greta actually appreciates that. Stop insulting my music, your ignorance is showing."_

"I'll always make time to insult your music," Aiden said. He'd rounded the van once, making sure everything looked good at least to his cursory inspection. The dark blue van was parked along several similar ones, but it was the only one without Mitchell's logo decorating the sides. It was the same blue, though, a fit of vanity Mitchell might end up regretting.

Aiden gave an inward shrug, it wasn't going to come crashing down tonight. He climbed into the van, took it out into the street as the first murky glow of morning collided with the remnant smog glow above the city.

_"It's called 'self-reflection', you know,"_ Damien said. _"The thing where you realise your own shortcomings and accept the judgement of your betters. Especially when it comes to music."_

"Are you even working back there?"

_"I can hack the traffic cameras with one hand tied behind my back,"_ Damien announced. He was still chewing, though, and somewhere in the background, Greta was trying to sing along to the music, though she didn't speak any Portuguese and it was just more wailing as a result. In the privacy of the dark car, Aiden pulled a face.

"It's called hubris, Damien," he remarked. "It's gonna get you in the end."

_"I hear you complain, but you lap it all up like it's ambrosia."_

"So did your half-assed hacking get anything yet?"

_"One-handed,"_ Damien corrected, taking another bite of whatever it was he was eating. _"Half-assed is your result when you try to hack anything better protected than a calculator."_

"Hey, if you don't have anything, just say so," Aiden said cheerfully. "I'll only judge you forever."

_"I'm going to disappoint you, my boy,"_ Damien said immediately. _"Now here's a man just asking for it. A bit shady and stupid enough to scatter hints of it all over his online profiles. Sometimes they make it so easy, it's beautiful. He's got a habit of running errands for everyone who'll pay him."_

Damien recited a long list of the man's involvement with various fixers, even some Club members and a handful of gang-bangers, but it was nothing Aiden hadn't expected. He suspected the man had some more serious secret stashed away somewhere, a gambling or drug habit, maybe a lover, or perhaps an entire family he needed the additional money for. There was nothing there to suggest he'd sell Mitchell, though. Small fry like that usually didn't have the guts to cheat the bigger players.

He heard Damien typing, sometimes, he'd mutter to himself, some curse or comment as he hacked his way through the network. Greta had stopped singing and seemed to have sat down by Damien's side. If she managed to make sense of what Damien was doing, Aiden would be impressed and slightly worried, but the worst Greta would do to either of them was write an essay about career criminals for one of her classes.

It'd be quicker to take the Skyway to the port, but Aiden preferred the comparable anonymity of avoiding the toll and their additional eyes and cameras. He still had no idea what was going to happen and just how badly it could go south, Aiden preferred to leave as few traces as possible for the cops to sniff out later.

Traffic control backed up its recording to a server farm somewhere below Blume HQ up in Pawnee and Blume had a solid layer of protection wrapped around it. He and Damien had established reliable access to the live-feeds, but the recordings took some time for Damien to crack.

_"And now things get interesting,"_ Damien said, whistling in surprise. _"I have no cameras inside the apartment building, but there is a man entering the building, around 9pm yesterday. Comes out two hours later."_

"What's interesting about him?"

_"He's not in the Profiler database. That's some professional work. Not half bad, but of course this kind of manipulation is just asking for someone to take an interest. He obviously has something to hide."_

"He's a fixer."

_"No shit Sherlock,"_ Damien snorted. _"So… about half an hour after Captain Obvious leaves, a few workers go in and come out carrying suspiciously unmarked boxes, but they_ happen _to be large enough for a body, if it's been chopped up a little."_

"Cleanup?"

_"I'm not so much into the dirty work myself, that's what I have you for, but yes, that's exactly what it looks like."_

Aiden considered.

_"What's the story, kid?"_

Aiden made a noncommittal sound before he answered, assembling the pieces as he went.

"Someone hired a fixer to intercept the pickup tonight," he said slowly. "He got to the man in his home, beat up on him a little until he spilled the details. Mitchell's a smart businesswoman, but I'm sure her employees know what's going on. So, this guy tells the fixer everything, fixer kills him, hires a few guys from lower down on the totem pole to clean up after him."

Damien chuckled darkly, _"You've been there?"_

"Bottom of the totem pole? Sure, but then I turned ten and people learned to toe the line."

Damien chuckled again and Greta joined in.

"Listen," Aiden said. "I'll be another fifteen minutes to the port. Do you think you can access the cameras there? Get a look at what's going on?"

_"Port is on a separate network,"_ Damien pointed out, didn't sound too thrilled about it. _"I hear Blume has plans to link it up to the rest next year."_

"Yeah, not waiting that long. Can you do it or not?"

_"What? Or you'll do it yourself?"_ Damien sniggered.

"Don't make me. I only have a phone, it'd be a bitch and take too long."

_"The way you hack? Definitely."_

"Oh? And who cracked _your_ password in under sixty seconds last weekend?"

Damien didn't answer, but failed to suppress a frustrated grunt.

"I'm waiting for that answer. Who did? Come on."

_"It's not really hacking if you just guess the password."_

Aiden grinned a little, though there was no one there to see it.

"Hacked _you,"_ Aiden finished in Damien's stead. "Still hacking."

_"Let's see you do that to the port network, my boy."_

"Not in fifteen minutes," Aiden said. "You like to talk when you drink, Damien. Fair warning for next time."

There was another moment of silence, then something brushed over the mic on Damien's end and the background tinkling of music faded away as Damien left the living room. Aiden heard the basement door, then the music was gone. Damien scratched a chair over the floor.

_"Give me twenty-five,"_ Damien said, rapidly tapping on the keyboard.

"Good enough, this once," Aiden said. "But send me a pic of the fixer, I'd like to know who I'm going up against."

Damien only grunted an affirmative and barely a minute later, Aiden's phone announced the arrival of a new message.

He picked up the phone, summoned the picture and stared at the blurry shot. It didn't have much detail, the fixer had been constantly in motion while he was within range of the camera. He was a tall man, athletic, dressed in some kind of pale suit. Aiden hadn't expected to recognise him, fixers weren't too sociable, even if they worked together for a job.

He tossed the phone to the passenger seat, flexed his hands on the wheel, but forced himself to slow down. There was no point to get to the port before Damien had found a way in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **References:**  
>  "... the street finds its own uses for things" Burning Chrome by William Gibson  
> Damien is listening to Fado, but quoting the Rolling Stones, go figure.
> 
> * * *
> 
> ****_Revised on 29/Nov/2016  
> _   
> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phone Aiden uses here is an equivalent of the Samsung i730 in terms of capability. He could probably hack with it if he needed to.  
> The existence of Profiler is a minor plothole, though. Smartphone apps just weren't there yet. It'd probably only run on a normal computer.  
> I got very annoyed with google maps during research and rage-quit the browser. I'm afraid I'll be winging that whole port setup. It's a fictional Chicago anyway. I don't think I cut any other corners.

"Are you in?"

_"Do you get that question a lot?"_

"Not once, but I keep having to ask you."

_"Well, it's a lot to take in, you know…"_

"I haven't got all night, Damien."

_"You've already wasted most of the night anyway. If you want to fly blind, you're welcome. I hear you used to bungle it like that anyway."_

Parked across the gatehouse, Aiden looked over what he could see of the port. Quite possibly, it wasn't as busy as it would be during the day, but there was still a significant bustle of coming and going trucks and transporters, around warehouses and stacks of containers. Tall cranes reached high into the foggy sky, only the lights were visible of their highest parts, moving lazily as they unloaded newly arrived ships.

"I hear your first attempt at this landed you in jail," Aiden said.

_"Rumours and lies, my boy,"_ Damien said. _"I'm in."_

"What took so long?" Aiden asked as he started the car and brought it back to the road. The gatehouse was manned, but the barrier was raised permanently, only an occasional searching look to pass over. He did have papers from Mitchell to show he was taking a delivery, but he didn't need them, just one more van didn't seem to warrant any special attention.

_"Bad news,"_ Damien said. _"Looks like the fixer's already there. He's at the warehouse loading ramp and talking to someone."_

"Someone? Profiler misbehaving?"

_"They aren't operating on Blume hardware, the cameras have been installed in the eighties and that's about their resolution, too. You're lucky they even_ have _computers."_

"How do you know it's the fixer?"

_"He's in better view. Stop with the nitpicking, I feel under-appreciated."_

Aiden chuckled quietly.

"Send me a pic of the layout."

_"You got it."_

Aiden gripped his phone again and glanced down, opened the picture Damien had sent. Its quality was even worse than the one from the apartment had been, yielding even fewer details in black and white. A dark SUV was parked at the loading ramp, two men were talking, one up on the ramp, the other standing on the asphalt below, he seemed to be gesturing as he spoke.

Aiden made an extra round, drove past the warehouse to catch a glimpse of his own of the scene. The fixer was still arguing with Mitchell's contact. By the man's stance, Aiden guessed he wasn't happy about it, unwilling to take the deal, but unsure of how to get the fixer to leave him alone. In the long run, the fixer would simply wear him down, but Aiden didn't have to let that happen.

Aiden parked across from the loading bay, in the shadow of a wall of containers and far enough away the fixer would probably think he was just a normal part of the port's usual activity.

Getting out of the car, Aiden said, "Damien? You there?"

_"Where else would I be?"_

"Keep an eye on us."

_"Nothing better on TV anyway,"_ Damien said and cleared his throat before he added, _"Make sure I'll like what I see."_

"I'll take requests. What do you wanna see?"

_"Surprise me,"_ Damien chortled, but his tone became serious again immediately, _"What I_ don't _want to see is you fucking it up. There's a lot of money in art and money brings the bad men."_

Aiden stood for a moment to survey his surrounding. At the other end of the ramp, a worker was going through several plastic-wrapped crates with a scanner, but he was out of easy earshot and wasn't paying any of them any attention. Other people seemed to be busy in the warehouse behind him, Aiden caught sight of a forklift moving more crates around. But none of these people were close enough to notice if something was off.

Aiden strode slowly towards the loading ramp, keeping the SUV between himself and the fixer as he approached.

"Is that the best you can do?" he inquired dryly. "Bad people? Who do you think I am?"

_"A street thug with delusions of grandeur,"_ Damien said.

Aiden smirked a little, asked, "Who do you think _you_ are?"

Damien didn't respond immediately, he was chuckling darkly. _"All right, we're all bad. Don't let the other bad people get the better of you."_

"You found anything on the fixer?"

_"No, but if you get me a good picture, I can run him through other recognition software. He's not in the Profiler database, but that doesn't mean he's nowhere."_

Profiler's success was at least partly due to its extreme reliability. It ID'd people at odd angles and in bad quality picture or video, much more so than any other software on the market. It was an old story by then, repeated since the dawn of Silicon Valley, small startup with a good idea and some genius coding. Today, most of the company was owned by Blume, but they weren't too keen to advertise the connection.

"I'll see what I can do," Aiden said. He dropped the phone into his pocket without cutting the connection and pulled a switchblade out as he came close. He plunged the blade deep into the back tyre of the SUV. The air hissed sharply as he pulled the blade back, but it wouldn't be too audible above the general noise of the port, the hissing of trucks and cars, the chattering of heavy metal. He did the same thing to the front tyre as he passed it by, he flipped the blade and snapped it closed, put both hands in the pockets of his jacket before he strode into view, catching the last part of the conversation.

"… now, come on," the fixer was saying, congeniality and impatience warring in his voice. He lifted his gloved hand and the brown envelope it held. "That's the better deal. You can take it. I'm not telling, I promise, but just stop, you know? Stop wasting my time."

He caught sight of Aiden, narrowed his eyes at him. " _Excuse_ me, but I'm having a conversation here. Wait your turn."

Aiden glanced over him, just enough to confirm his earlier assessment. The fixer had almost Aiden's own height, broad shoulders under a pale coat and a dark suit, all of it looked tailor-made, expensive. The way he held himself, Aiden guessed he wore a gun on his belt, right-handed or at least preferring the right.

He'd taken a half step back when he'd spotted Aiden, angling his body into a more defensive stance, giving Aiden the same critical once-over he was receiving. Some of his affected levity bled away, but Aiden made it a point to turn toward the man up on the ramp, pretending to ignore the fixer.

"You," Aiden said. "Nigel, right? I'm here to pick up a delivery. You were told about me. The name's Pearce."

Nigel hesitated, gaze skittered to the other fixer and back. He was young, used to hard work and shaped accordingly, but uncomfortable with and unused to violence.

"I…"

"Ah ah ah," the fixer made and when Aiden looked back at him, a vaguely offended frown had settled on his smooth face. "As I was _saying,_ we are in the middle of a conversation. Nice to meet you, Nigel, by the way, and you'd be much better off taking my deal."

He walked forward and put the thick envelope on the ramp by Nigel's feet, then stepped back. "I'll just leave this here for you," the fixer said.

Nigel didn't move, looked increasingly like a deer in the headlights.

"My van's parked over there," Aiden said, pointed with one hand. "Get the package loaded, I'll sort this thing out."

Now that Aiden was there, Nigel was unlikely to take another deal, even if it turned out to be the better offer. The only reason he still hovered was because the fixer had already softened him up somewhat. He still hesitated, but then seemed to just grasp at the straw he'd been handed and hurried back into the warehouse.

"You'll sort this thing out?" the fixer asked, mock surprise making his eyebrows rise. He rubbed a hand across his forehead. "It's not my day, you know that? This job, I swear, shouldn't have taken it. More trouble than it's worth." He lifted his other hand and gestured at the envelope. "You know what this is? That's more money than this dick sees in a year and he rejects it. Loyalty and all that, _terrible_ invention, causes you to make stupid decisions."

Aiden watched him. The fixer seemed to be constantly moving as he spoke, small shifts of his feet and sweeping gestures with his hands.

"Yeah," Aiden agreed. "How about you let it go?"

The fixer displayed more feigned surprise, curled the corners of his mouth in distaste. He tilted his head to the side. "I could, but I'm far too curious to see how you plan to _sort this thing out,_ because from where I'm standing you look just _slightly_ in over your head here."

Aiden shrugged. "Well, there are a couple ways this can go. One, we keep having a friendly chat until Nigel does his job, I pay him, we part ways. No hard feelings, no bruised knuckles, no reason for the cops to come sniffing around…"

The fixer tapped his chin thoughtfully, "I like that last one, but I don't like where you're coming from with it. You see, I have a reputation and I don't return empty handed. Makes a bad impression."

"You want to fight it out?" Aiden asked.

The fixer made an annoyed sound. "Oh come on, that's what I get for dealing with common thugs, no imagination. Here's a counter offer. This money here that Nigel didn't want, it's up for grabs. You pay him his share, I give you his and I take the package."

He'd swung back a bit as he spoke, glanced up when Nigel reappeared on the ramp, pushing a cart in front of him. The crate was larger than Aiden had expected.

Aiden shook his head, sighed a little to match the fixer's mien. "What about my reputation, though?"

The fixer shrugged, "I'm sure it'll recover. Eventually."

Aiden watched as Nigel rolled the cart down the ramp, leaning his weight against the pull on the way down. He took his sweet time with it, too, more than Aiden would've liked. Once the package was in his van, he could simply make a run for it, incapacitate the fixer quickly and be gone before the fixer even figured out his ride was useless.

The fixer caught the direction of his gaze, though and some long strides brought him right into Nigel's path.

"Hold it right there," he said and slung a companionable arm around Nigel shoulder. "Don't do something you'd regret."

Aiden had turned with him, but hadn't otherwise moved.

"How about I offer you the same deal?" Aiden asked. "Something extra for your bruised ego?"

The fixer arched his brows while Nigel did his best to shrink in his grip, despite being somewhat bigger than the fixer.

The fixer chuckled, leaned forward pretending to try to contain the laugh. He stopped and straightened, gaze fixed on something behind Aiden and the mirth dropped from his face. Aiden turned his head just slightly, guessed the fixer had spotted his deflating tyres and drawn his own conclusion.

"That's it, then?" the fixer asked and made it sound like a rhetorical question. He gave Nigel a little squeeze, then let go and stepped back toward Aiden. "I try to be nice here and that's how you repay me? Have some _professional_ courtesy."

"To muscle in on someone else's deal," Aiden pointed out. "How's that professional courtesy?"

"Now that you mention it…" the fixer snorted dismissively, took another step, it seemed an innocent enough move, but he'd got himself out of easy reach of Nigel and the cart, in case he worked up the courage to interfere, but he was too far away for Aiden to reach easily.

He turned out faster on the draw than Aiden had expected, all the unnecessary grandeur of his gestures was a distraction and it had done its job, even if Aiden hadn't been keen on a shootout in the middle of a busy port. The place was too easy to lock down, not many exits, water on three sides. Even with Damien guiding him through the cameras, it'd be tough to slip away unnoticed.

When the fixer drew a gun, Aiden only shrugged slightly and raised his hands without waiting for the prompt.

Nigel flinched, eyes going wide.

"Hey," he said. "We don't want any trouble. Just tell me what to do."

The fixer barely glanced over him, keeping his gaze fixed on Aiden, who'd still used the tiny diversion to shuffle his feet forward a scant inch.

"Now what?" Aiden said.

"Give me your car keys," the fixer said. " _Slowly."_

Aiden lowered his arm, keeping eye contact as he put it in his pocket. His fingers slipped over the switchblade and he briefly considered the opportunity. He didn't know how good the fixer was and how long it would take to subdue him, how messy it would be, how much attention it'd attract.

He fished the keys out and removed his hand just as slowly.

"So, Nigel wasn't it?" the fixer said. "Get the key, load the package and double-time it, I'm not being paid by the hour here."

Nigel sidled over to Aiden, tense and unsure, looking for some kind of confirmation as he took the key from Aiden's hand.

Aiden nodded, "I'll handle it."

"Oh, how sweet," the fixer commented as Nigel hurried back, got hold of the cart and started pushing it towards the van. "How are you going to handle it?" He gestured with the gun, but didn't leave an opening. "Your handling so far… well, I'm not arguing, but I feel annoyed rather than challenged."

Aiden smiled faintly, "Let's not take the fun out of it."

Even without an outbreak of violence, they were starting to draw stares. Other workers were craning their necks from further along the ramp and inside the warehouse, some of them had already taken the first few steps in their direction. The fixer's gun was fairly small, it'd take another few moments until it truly registered for what it was.

Nigel had finished loading the van and the cart rumbled louder, bouncing on the uneven asphalt as he returned, somewhat reluctantly. He studied the fixer, then looked at Aiden, waiting for what was coming next.

"No bad feelings," the fixer said, edged backward, took the keys from Nigel's hand. He walked backward to the van, in a series of perfectly coordinated movements, he opened the door, climbed in, put the gun away. Aiden was never out of his sight, never had enough time to pull his own gun, even if he'd tried.

"What...?" Nigel began helplessly as the fixer drove off.

Aiden dropped his hand, pointed at Nigel. "Stay there," he ordered and pulled his phone out.

"Don't lose the van," he said sharply.

_"Sure, dark blue van, early morning light, no problem,"_ Damien said sarcastically. _"What are you doing?"_

"I have a plan."

_"Doesn't look like a plan."_

"Yes, that's how clever it is."

"Nigel? Something wrong?" another worker called. He'd stepped forward to the edge of the ramp, two more right behind him. One of them jumped down close by Aiden's side, making him take a step back out of reflex.

"No no!" Nigel said quickly, but without much conviction.

"Stay," Aiden said again, this time to all of them. He reached out and picked up the envelope the fixer had left. He opened it and checked the contents quickly, looked up.

"Okay," he said, raised his voice. "This is very important, so listen. Nothing bad happened here, no need for anyone to run their mouths."

"Are you kidding me?" the man on the ground said. "What was this shit?" He looked over at Nigel, frowned. "What dirty business are you mixed up in?"

"Hey, nothing," Nigel said, raised his hands.

"Nothing," Aiden repeated. "And it'd better stay that way."

"Who asked you?" the worker asked sharply. "Piss off before I call security on your ass."

Aiden took a step forward, right into the man's personal space. He didn't have a whole lot of time to waste on arguing with them.

The worker tried hard not to flinch, but he didn't outlast Aiden's stare for very long. Aiden caught the minute change in the man's expression, an indication that he would back down.

Aiden pulled the bundle of money from the envelope, looked back over the others.

"Here, no one said there's nothing in it for you. Two thousand dollars for each and we all forget this ever happened."

He didn't give them the chance to reject the offer, stuffed the first bundle of money into the hand of the man right in front of him, then stepped back and handed the others their share. No one objected once they had the money in their hands, though some of them were quick to hide it away in budding shame.

The other workers dealt with, Aiden walked over and got a hold of Nigel's arm.

"It wasn't my fault," was the first thing he said. "I did my part."

"It's fine," Aiden said. "Here's the money Mitchell promised, but be careful around your co-workers, they'll remember this, even if they don't talk."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be surprised if some of them want in on your deal, others… well, they'll feel bad and they'll vent it on you. It's best if you keep your head down for a while. I'll let Mitchell know."

Nigel turned the money in his hand, more than Aiden had distributed among the others. He put it away in his pocket quickly, kept his hand stuffed there with it, as if he was afraid it'd drop to the floor and reveal everything.

Aiden let go of Nigel and left him standing there to make peace with himself alone.

He hurried back to the fixer's car, put the phone back to his ear as he quickly searched the car for anything useful.

"You still got it?"

_"Of course I do. He's hit traffic and had to slow down,"_ Damien said. _"Let me hear your plan."_

"In a minute," Aiden said, climbed back out of the SUV. He hadn't found anything, though it wasn't a rental. An umbrella in the glovebox and assorted crumbs and trash that tended to accumulate in there. He doubted it was the fixer's car, more likely it was just a stolen throwaway car.

"I need a ride," he said.

_"I can call you a cab if you'd like,"_ Damien offered sniggering.

"A parking lot will do."

_"Head to the right, past the warehouse and ta-ta, all you can eat buffet."_

"Don't lose the van," Aiden said as he walked into the direction Damien had given.

_"I'm not losing the van. As long as he's not going into any blind spots, we're set."_

Aiden rounded the warehouse and found the parking lot. Aiden walked along the chain-link fence until he found a gap. He stepped up on a concrete boulder to get a better look over the parking lot.

_"I'm still not seeing the bigger picture."_

Aiden sighed, disappointed. "Do you think I couldn't have taken down that pimped out poser?"

_"If you're angling for compliments…"_

"A place like that warehouse? Can't control it. It's too open and it's not just you watching through the cameras. Things get out of hand, shit hits the fan. This fixer, he'll have a _quiet_ setup for a meet."

_"His home turf."_

"Hmm," Aiden made. He jumped from the boulder and walked through the rows of cars until he stopped at the side of a battered looking 571. It would be easy to break into, but the owner hadn't even locked it.

"He doesn't know about you," Aiden pointed out. "Don't disappoint me."

_"I never disappoint."_

"Then there's nothing to worry about," Aiden said, bent down to hot-wire the car with the phone wedged between his shoulder and his head. The ignition sparked, followed by the low, oddly chirping sound of the engine.

"Okay, I'm moving, tell me where to go," he said as he drove for the port exit.

* * *

Dawn was slowly beginning to creep up on the horizon, just visible above the water, but darkness was still thick among the warehouses and industrial sites around the port. Shift changeover was letting the traffic grow, though. Aiden had no patience for the slow moving cars and their fatigued drivers. He wove his way around them, using even small gaps between the vehicles and ignored the traffic lights when he thought he could get away with it. 

It wasn't comfortable in the car. The 571 had a manual transmission and he needed one hand on it, the other on the wheel so he had to keep his phone by his ear with his shoulder. He felt a thin thread of pain begin to run down his neck, darkening his mood. He was beginning to wonder if he'd made a mistake. That fixer wasn't a poser, he knew what he was doing. He'd tortured and killed a man just to get to Nigel, he had some kind of support network working with him, maybe something much more dangerous than a chain-smoking hacker with an overblown ego, which was all Aiden had.

Traffic slowed down in front of him, clogged the street so thoroughly, he had no chance but to stop with them. Aiden took a deep breath, caught his phone in his hand and massaged the side of his neck with the other.

"Where is he?"

_"Heading to Mad Mile,"_ Damien said.

"Any idea where he's going?"

_"How should I know? You should've asked him when you had the chance,"_ Damien said. There was the rustle of clothes, the squeak of the chair as he moved. In his mind, Aiden saw Damien lean back in the chair and settle his legs up on the table. _"Does your plan still seem clever to you?"_

"I got it," Aiden said, then cleared his throat when he realised it hadn't sounded very convincing.

He heard Damien move again and after another moment, he said, _"Yes, you got a problem."_

The line of cars ahead of Aiden was starting to unravel and he stuffed the phone back against his ear and dropped his hands back to the wheel and the gearstick. He pushed through to the middle of the street, using what gaps there were to overtake the slower moving cars before he could be bogged down by them. It earned him a few enraged honks and several passive-aggressive headlight flares, especially when he was forced too close and left scratches in the paint of other cars.

"What problem?"

_"He's just gone down into the garage under Fantastic Mile Shops."_

Aiden was silent for a moment, traffic pushing to the forefront of his mind as he hit a crossroads and had to brake hard before he slithered into the passing traffic, it was too thick and too fast to force through.

Fantastic Mile was a shopping mall, a mile long and full of brand stores and open nearly at all hours.

"Get a look inside."

_"What do you think I'm doing?"_ Damien said, a little sharper than before, perhaps in response to Aiden's tone. _"But what's a good long look going to do? They're exchanging the merchandise, aren't they? Are you going to just keep chasing that van until you run out of gas?"_

Aiden scowled. The flow of traffic in front of him trickled out as the lights changed. He hit the gas and shot across the crossroads before any of the other cars had a chance to accelerate. For a few moments, the road was clear in front of him and every second of speed felt precious.

"No," Aiden said. "Can you slow them down?"

_"How, pray tell?"_ Damien asked. _"I might be able to turn on the fire sprinkling system, but I don't see that helping much… Wait, ah… I see them. The van parked, no one else in sight yet. But… hmm. I could lock the gate down for a few minutes, but not more than that at one time."_

"Right, yes," Aiden said thoughtful. "Do that, but only if it looks like they're getting away. I… " he paused, considered. "Can you turn off the power? That'd lock them in."

_"You want to blackout the mall?"_ Damien asked, then sniggered. _"I like that idea, but I can't do it quickly. And I won't be able to see you."_

"I'll need only a minute, I can handle myself alone for that long."

Damien was silent, but his concentration came through the connection quite cleanly. Aiden focussed on driving, glad for the respite. He took a sharp right turn, left the main road behind and took the longer, but hopefully less choked path through a residential area, where his main concern were parked cars on either side and some heads-on traffic, but it was generally easier to navigate.

For a while, Aiden had no other company than the humming of the engine and the rare scream of metal if he got too close to a parked car. He took a length of road on the sidewalk, because the street itself was closed down by a delivery truck parked in the middle. He heard someone yell at him and saw a man flip him off through the rear-view mirror.

Past the houses, the street opened up again. Traffic was slightly thinner here, moving a little faster and the streets were wide enough for him to just take the middle and ignore the other cars. He hoped no cop was on patrol and felt the need to reprimand him for his driving. Not a chance in hell he'd make it to Fantastic Mile if that happened.

Aiden was relieved when Fantastic Mile came into sight finally. Ahead of him, a well-lit arrow pointed to the entrance of Fantastic Mile's underground garage.

"I'm nearly there," Aiden said. "What about you?"

_"The contact has arrived,"_ Damien said. _"I'm in Fantastic Mile's system, but their power distribution is well-secured, I need another moment."_

Aiden swerved sharply to the right, took the front spot at a red traffic light to some agitated honking.

"I need to know the layout. Where are they?"

Damien didn't answer immediately, busy with something else and he sounded impatient and distracted when he said, _"Two levels down, northwestern end of the garage."_

After another moment, Aiden's phone announced a new message and he took it from his ear to look at the picture Damien had send. It was an abandoned corner of the garage, no other parked cars were visible anywhere in the picture. Behind the parked van, a fire exit was could be seen. The fixer had got out of the van, leaned with his back against the front, arms crossed over his chest, watching a second van right in front of him.

Aiden didn't wait for the traffic light to change, the moment there was an opening, he hit the gas again, nearly crashed with an oncoming car, but managed to evade, used the momentum for a wider swing and turned into the garage entrance. Fantastic Mile had a free parking policy during less busy hours, so the barriers were open.

"Can you close the barriers?" Aiden asked.

_"Barriers or power, you decide,"_ Damien said.

"Power."

_"Then no, I can't."_

"We need to work on your multi-tasking," Aiden remarked.

_"We need to work on your planning,"_ Damien shot back.

"Actually," Aiden started. "You're the only weak point in my plan."

_"I'm your ace and you know it. You don't_ have _a plan without me. Here we are… power goes on your say-so,"_ Damien sounded a little smug about it, too. Penetrating a system this quickly wasn't bad work by any stretch of the imagination, especially because he had to do it without any prior knowledge and no time for any setup.

"Good," Aiden said. "How long do I have?"

_"I can block the generator from kicking in for ten minutes and the system reboots after fifteen if nothing works. That'll kick me out, though so you'd better be through by then."_

"Fifteen minutes is more than I'll need."

_"You're welcome."_

Aiden turned off the headlights when he arrived on the right floor. He passed a few random people and saw some parked cars scattered around the area, but they got fewer the deeper he drove into the garage. He suspected the fixer had someone working for Fantastic Mile, otherwise going by so many cameras wouldn't make sense, even if he wasn't identifiable and using a vehicle that couldn't be traced back to him.

He slowed down as the surrounding garage began to resemble what he'd seen in the picture. The 571 wasn't a quiet car, but he hoped he could sneak it past everyone's attention for just long enough.

"They switched the package, yet?"

_"No, it's still in the blue van."_

Aiden stopped finally completely when he saw the two vans on the other end of the garage, assessed the situation. The fixer and his contact were talking and Aiden spotted another man behind the wheel of the second van. A third man stood back from the group, beside he van. The fixer reached out to shake hands with the man in front of him.

"Damien? _Now."_

He didn't wait for confirmation, just hit the gas and the 571's engine roared up angrily, tyres smearing over the ground before the car shot forward. Aiden's mind felt sharp, sometimes he thought he could cut himself on it in moments like this, a surge of adrenaline that gave him complete control of the world and everything was simple and obvious. He heard the snap of the power as it went down, the slightest afterglow from the lights, just a snapshot of the scene in front of him before there was only darkness, cut up deceptively by the headlights of a van.

Aiden had aimed carefully, he knew he'd not have time to adjust the direction much when he was already in full spin. He hit the edge of the van with his car and punched one of the men over the hood on the other side. The impact made the tail of his car swing out behind him, swipe over where the fixer had been, though the man had managed to throw himself aside.

He heard yelling, dull sounds of flesh as the man rolled from the top of his car. Aiden, braced for the impact, didn't need time to collect himself. He kicked open the door and dove out, into the darkness, where he suspected the second man was.

One of the headlights had blown out and it hadn't been enough time for his vision to adjust, but he had a sense of his surroundings, edged into his memory, enough to predict where everyone was after a mere few seconds.

Aiden came up right in front of a man, lunged for his throat and smashed him back into the solidity of the van, putting the full weight of his body into it. The man's head hit the van with a dull thud, scrambling hands came up along Aiden's arms. Aiden dragged him back, smashed him into the van again and the man let go, moaning quietly as Aiden dropped him unceremoniously.

By then the van's driver had freed himself and stumbled around the back. He was bleeding from a split brow, just about visible as Aiden's sight began to improve. The man launched himself at Aiden with an angry shout that echoed around the garage, but he didn't have much finesse, confused from the crash. Aiden bent out of the way, letting the man's fury spent itself on empty air, then Aiden stepped into the back of his knee, hard enough to do damage and the man toppled messily. Aiden caught his chin with a kick, flipping him over on his back and the man stayed down, groaning quietly.

The deep sound of an engine starting made Aiden snap his head around, ignore the two downed men and throw himself back around.

The fixer had used the minute he'd had to get into Mitchell's van. The crash had boxed it in, but some rough application of force would free it. The fixer switched on the headlights, washed away Aiden's night vision and forced him to throw himself down blindly right before the first shot hissed past where his head had been.

The van pushed into the 571 and the metal of both cars complained.

Aiden had no interest in getting in the way of the van and in front of the fixer's gun. He pulled himself up and rolled over the roof of the 571, landed on his feet and swung up on the passenger side of the van before the fixer had time to bring his gun around.

Aiden tore open the passenger side door, settled a knee on the seat and dove for the fixer. The man had his hands full, had time to snarl, but couldn't stop Aiden from getting a good grip on his head and smashing it down into the wheel. In the same moment, Aiden went for the fixer's wrist, twisted the gun from his hand. He wanted to twist it around, press it to the man's temple when he recovered, but the fixer delivered a punch in Aiden's direction. It wasn't good enough to do much damage, but it forced Aiden to toss the gun out through the door, out of reach for both of them.

The fixer brought his elbow up, hacked it into the side of Aiden's face, followed up by pulling himself from his seat to bring his full weight to bear. Aiden snapped his head back just in time, didn't relinquish the hold he still had on the fixer's other wrist, though it was tenuous at best. He got his own free hand past the fixer's defence, found his throat and pushed him back into his seat before he could get up. The fixer twisted his hand free and with the same motion, punched it into the side of Aiden's face.

For a moment, Aiden's grip on the fixer's throat lessened, but then he dug his fingers in harder, felt the resistance, the man struggling and throwing a second blow, though this one sloppier and with less power behind it. The fixer tried to bring his arm up, lever Aiden's hand away from him and Aiden let go abruptly before his hold was broken. He shifted his grip and punched the man's face down into the wheel again, hit the horn comically and reached past the fixer while he still tried to muster a defence.

Aiden opened the door on the fixer's side. It wasn't easy to haul the fixer through the door, legs still braced under the wheel and even with the second blow, the fight didn't seem to be going out of him.

Aiden heard him grunt and it sounded almost amused in the moment before a head-butt burst Aiden's nose. Aiden reeled back, blinking, blindly punched for the man, hit his face and he lost his balance at the edge of the door.

Aiden shook his head, didn't allow the pain to confuse him. He could do this blind, force himself through. The fixer had landed awkwardly, but was already rolling back up as Aiden slipped behind the wheel.

Aiden backed up sharply, the van hit the wall and Aiden yanked the wheel so he could push past the 571 and the other van. He hit the gas and the van shot forward and into the darkness of the garage. In the rear-view mirror, Aiden spotted the fixer coming back up, his gun at the ready, firing several shot after Aiden. He'd aimed low, for the tyres rather than the vehicle, too smart to risk damaging the package. Aiden zigzagged the van and turned off the lights, became an unreliable target.

The shooting stopped and he slowed down just a little to orient himself. No point in crushing the van into a wall this late in the game.

He wiped at his bleeding nose as he drove the van back to the exit, much slower now, switching the light on to see by.

When he'd reached the floor above, he finally allowed himself to relax just a little. Even if the fixer made a run for the stairwell, he wouldn't be able to pick up the trail in the dark.

Aiden found his phone again, "You still there?"

_"What's going on?"_

"You can turn the power back on, I'm almost out."

_"You sound a little weird. You hurt?"_

Aiden sniffled ineffectively and reached up to feel along his nose carefully.

"Just a nosebleed, don't think anything's broken."

_"That's actually a pity,"_ Damien commented, acid humour spilling back into his tone to replace the concern.

Aiden took a deep breath. "Look, I need to call Mitchell. Keep an eye on the garage, I want to know what the fixer's up to. Don't want any surprises before I get this thing done."

_"Where would you be without me?"_

Aiden made a low growling sound, admittedly not especially eloquent and he heard Damien laughing, cut short when Aiden hung up. He took a deep breath, blood crusted his nose, restricted his breathing. He had an ugly metallic taste in his mouth.

He picked his route through the city with some care, adapting it on the fly to the traffic situation. He didn't want to slow down too much, present an opportunity for the fixer to pick up his trail again.

However, for the moment, he was glad for the silence and the breathing space.

It was true, though, he _did_ need to call Mitchell, remind her not to sit on the paintings, they brought a lot of heat and he wasn't in the mood to help her weather it, or prevent it from coming back to him in some way. He drove for an extra half hour, keeping his attention on the mirrors and the cars around him until he was reasonably sure he'd lost any tail, if he'd ever had it. He had got out of the mess, though it hadn't looked quite so good for a while there.

Damien didn't call him back, either, so at least Damien hadn't picked up any immediate threat.

Aiden shook himself from the quiet revery of the drive, changed lanes and headed back towards Mitchell's store, while he thumbed through the contacts on his phone to call her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
> _Revised on 29/Nov/2016_  
>  **


	3. Epilogue

Damien's house needed a new layer of paint, the garden could do with a makeover and the fence should probably be repaired at some point. It wasn't too rundown yet and it wouldn't attract attention, though, and while their immediate neighbours were in a somewhat better state, no one seemed to care particularly much. People here worked hard, often more than one job, worried not only about food and their electrical bill, but also about the gangs and the prevailing police brutality in their tow. East Corland Park wasn't too far away, either, where the dealer density was higher than the trees.

Juliana didn't exactly like coming around here, didn't like it when she dropped off Marcus and had to cross the neighbourhood to do it. When she'd come by yesterday, she'd pulled a face and had a few choice things to say about the things she'd seen on the way. Damien suspected it was only a question of time until she'd stop Marcus from visiting and Damien wasn't entirely sure what he'd do then.

It was ridiculous in a way, for the first time in his life, he had something to offer other than a crappy pay-check and a perpetually foul mood. On some level, he understood Juliana's decision to leave, he disagreed, but it was her choice. He didn't know why she wouldn't want him to provide for his son. Who cared if the money was dirty if it served a worthwhile cause? Besides, he and Aiden were very thorough in laundering it…

_If_ she ever tried to take joint custody away, Damien hoped he could play the system as well as he thought. For now, he thought sending Aiden along on body-guarding duty, if the neighbourhood bothered her so much. Of course, Aiden's presence just made Juliana's heckles rise more, but at least she'd be safe.

Damien stepped out on the front porch to light a cigarette, leaned forward casually on the balustrade and watched as the fixer got out of his expensive car, swaggered along the garden path as if he owned the damn place. At least he had enough sense to stop halfway to the house.

It was the first good look Damien had of the man and he was beginning to develop an eye for dangerous fighters and this one was no joke, though he seemed to put some effort into appearing comparably harmless.

"Your timing needs work," Damien said instead of a greeting, making a show of drawing on his cigarette, unimpressed by the fixer's appearance and deliberately looking away from him for a moment, dismissing him as a threat.

It had taken the fixer almost four weeks to track them down and Damien had already assumed he'd given up on them. The art job had been messy in its execution and for a time afterward, chatter on the grid and elsewhere had suggested someone was looking for Aiden. As a precaution, Damien had been monitoring the traffic cameras at both ends of the street and it had paid off, thanks to the fixer's conspicuous car.

The fixer shrugged slightly, tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks, glanced past Damien and over the house, his expression cooly disinterested.

"You were hard to find," the fixer said and made it sound like some minor slight he was graciously not taking personally.

Damien took another drag from the cigarette before he answered. He was uncomfortably aware of Marcus in the house behind him, currently entertained by Greta and a batch of ice cream, but it didn't make him feel much better.

As far as Damien knew, Aiden's client had already resold the paintings and god knew where they had ended up at since then. At least Mitchell had been generous with the payment. Aiden had invested it into a shiny new Vespid, usually hidden inside the garage in case someone got stupid over it, but the Vespid was nothing compared to the fixer's car. It was like the fixer _wanted_ it to be vandalised.

"Not hard enough," Damien said. After three weeks, the rumours had stopped, but the fixer apparently hadn't given up, like Damien had thought — and hoped — he would.

"No," the fixer said, shook his head in mock sadness. He raised his hands and tried to give a friendly smile, though it had more teeth in it than it needed. "But I come in peace. So, you're what? The tech guy? A hacker? The one who caused the blackout?"

It was a neat piece of conjecture, Damien was willing to give him that. The blackout under Fantastic Mile had been far too convenient to be chance, of course, but attributing it to a hacker was something of a leap.

Damien frowned at the man through the thin veil of smoke, let him hang there, waiting for an answer. The fixer had unsettled Aiden, not in a fight or flight panic reaction, but enough to take heed. Aiden didn't back down easily or often, but he was smart enough to pick his battles and hadn't liked the fixer looking for him at all.

"I just like to play," Damien said ambiguously and continued to smoke, wondering how long the fixer's laid-back attitude was going to last. Without Marcus there this weekend, Damien would have been willing to enjoy the back and forth, the prickling of danger, but now he felt impatient and annoyed. He wanted the fixer to leave before he could cause another mess right on Damien's doorstep.

It was then that Aiden finally decided to make his entrance and Damien took a slightly deeper breath.

When they'd spotted the fixer, Aiden had slipped out the back of the house and now came around from the side, long-legged stride fast enough to bring him behind the fixer, cutting off his path back to his car. The fixer's attention snapped to Aiden and he took a step back, pivoted on a heel until he had both of them in sight, though he could only really focus on one.

Aiden settled a hand on the post by the garden gate, looked over the fixer's car with every appearance of boredom.

"What do you want?" Aiden asked.

"Straight to the point," the fixer remarked, tilted his head at Aiden like a serpent. "I've got to say, you go for the throat, I can respect that. I just wanted to pay my compliments. I hope your nose has recovered?"

Aiden bared his teeth a little, "Yes," he said with thin humour. "How's your reputation doing?"

The fixer's mood immediately darkened, but only for a second before his smoothly amused facade was back in place. He crinkled his nose before he spoke, "Yes, that."

He paused, seemed to consider. "I had to pay back my advance and I'm suitably humbled in the process. I don't think my client is going to recommend me, but that's that. It doesn't _always_ work out how you plan, that'd be just too dull." He glanced at Damien briefly, then focussed on Aiden again. "Don't worry, good people, I'm not here to extract bloody revenge."

"That'd be a supremely stupid thing to do," Damien said. "Seeing where you're standing."

"That's _it_ exactly," the fixer announced cheerfully. "I'm glad you get it. Sometimes it's just so hard to overcome people's natural distrust. Just last week, I had to deal with a weapon's smuggler and all I wanted…"

"Do you always take that long to make your point?" Aiden interrupted. "They like to steel the wheels off your ride after sunset."

" _They_ are welcome to try, but _you_ need to chill, my friend." He pointed at him with both hands before he stood relaxed again.

Damien sniggered quietly to himself. Aiden mostly only pretended to be this stuck up when he wanted to intimidate someone, a piece of acting that seemed to be mostly missing the mark this time. The fixer was ready to spring, though, despite the flaunted composure of his grand entrance. If Aiden was adamant about not underestimating the fixer, the man in turn was at least offering the same courtesy.

With the fixer's attention on Aiden, Damien stepped back to the house and picked up the camera he'd deposited on the window sill earlier. He came back to the edge of the porch and called, "Hey!"

When the fixer looked back around, Damien snapped a couple of pictures before the fixer had time to react.

"Who is this guy anyway?" the fixer asked in Aiden's general direction. "Your pet hacker?"

Aiden smirked a little. "He's my assistant," he said.

"I'm his mentor," Damien cut in, raised his voice a little and aimed the burning tip of his cigarette at Aiden.

The fixer quirked an eyebrow, "Whatever."

Part of Damien's senses warned him in the moment before the door opened, just enough time to school his features, he'd already turned halfway around by the time Marcus stuck his head out.

"Dad," Marcus grumbled. "You smoke too long."

Aiden detached himself from the fence and took one carefully measured step toward the fixer, a small movement, meant to distract him, but the fixer immediately picked up on it.

"Oh, how sweet," the fixer commented. He flashed his teeth at Aiden. "Didn't take you for a family guy."

"You don't know me," Aiden replied noncommittally, though very quietly and with undercurrent of roughness.

Damien snipped the cigarette into the dead grass, didn't care that it continued smouldering.

"I'm all done," he announced to his son, glanced back over his shoulder to make eye contact with Aiden for a split second and the slight nod he gave.

Damien pushed through the door, scooped Marcus up as he went, kicked the door shut with his foot.

Outside, the fixer only shrugged. "I meant that," he said, just as cheerfully as before. "It's sweet. Not my thing, of course, I don't do sweet. Families are always such a fount of complication."

"Say your piece and leave," Aiden said darkly. "Or, _just_ leave _."_

The fixer turned on the path to face Aiden fully, took a breath and allowed his expression to grow a little more serious.

"So, you and…" he waved with a hand in the air, "your whatever, the two of you for sale?"

Aiden didn't answer, just watched the fixer in the heavy silence that had dropped the moment Damien had left, eyes narrowed at the fixer, not quite trying to stare him down, because this wasn't the man who'd take kindly to such a tactic. It wasn't necessary to antagonise him, either. Some incalculable mystery and unspoken, ill-defined threat was quite enough.

Aiden wagged his head a little. "We can talk about working together, sometimes," he finally said. "If you've got anything to offer."

A new grin split the fixer's face, self-satisfied and perhaps even genuine. He shook into motion, easily breaking whatever spell Aiden had been weaving.

"I'm sure I do, I'm good that way," the fixer said lightly. "Let's stay in touch."

He swaggered past Aiden, gave him a quick pat on the shoulder as he passed him by. Aiden held himself still, he'd expected it and figured it was one of the fixer's mannerisms rather than an attempted power game and Aiden was willing to let it slide. Some more connections among the fixers could come in handy and the man had proven himself solid under fire. Someone useful to have on your side, especially places where Damien was blind or otherwise couldn't help out.

Aiden turned with the fixer and kept a pensive eye on him as he drove off. He didn't turn away until the taillights of the fixer's car had turned the corner at the end of the street. Allowing himself to relax, Aiden finally turned away and strode back to the house.

Once inside, he found Marcus sharing the space in Damien's lap with the laptop. He heard Greta in the kitchen, helping herself to some more ice-cream.

"Gone," Aiden said before Damien even asked.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Damien said. He lifted the laptop, "I found your fixer. Interesting guy."

Aiden picked the computer from Damien's hand and skimmed over the information on the screen.

"Jordi Chin, eh?" he mused. "He wants us to work with him."

"What's your take?"

Without looking up from the screen, Aiden shrugged.

"Loose gun. Working with him could be lucrative. Could be risky." He paused. "Could be completely suicidal."

Damien grinned. "No drawbacks, then."

"No, not really," he agreed dryly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Revised on 29/Nov/2016_ **

**Author's Note:**

>  **Revised** on 03/May/2016


End file.
